§ 4. HANDWRITING. In the ME. period two varieties of script were in use, both developed from the Caroline minuscule which has proved to be the most permanent contribution of the schools of Charlemagne. The one, cursive and flourished, is common in charters, records, and memoranda; see C. H. Jenkinson and C. Johnson, _Court Hand_, 2 vols., Oxford 1915. The other, in which the letters are separately written, with few flourishes or adaptations of form in combination, is the 'book hand', so called because it is regularly used for literary texts. Between the extreme types there are many gradations; and fifteenth-century copies, such as the Cambridge MS. of Barbour's _Bruce_, show an increasing use of cursive forms, which facilitate rapid writing. The shapes of letters were not always so distinct as they are in print, so that copyists of the time, and even modern editors, are liable to mistake one letter for another. Each hand has its own weaknesses, but the letters most commonly misread are:— _e_ : _o_ e.g. _Beuo_ for _Bouo_ I 59; _wroche_ for _wreche_ II 333; _teches_ IV _b_ 60, where _toches_ (foot-note) is probably right; pesible (MS. _posible_) XI _b_ 67. _u_ : _n_ (practically indistinguishable) e.g. _menys_ (MS. _mouys_) XVI 301; _skayned_ (edd. _skayued_) V 99; _ryueȝ_ or _ryneȝ_ V 222 (note). This is only a special case of the confusion of letters and combinations formed by repetition of the downstroke, e.g. _u_, _n_, _m_, and _i_ (which is not always distinguished by a stroke above). Hence _dim_ II 285 where modern editors have _dun_, although _i_ has the distinguishing stroke. _y_ : _þ_ e.g. _ye_ (MS. _þe_) XIV _d_ 11; see note to XV _a_ 12. Confusion is increased by occasional transference to _þ_ of the dot which historically may stand over _y_. _ȝ_ for _þ_ initially, as in XVI 170, is more often due to confusion of the letters _þ_: _y_ and subsequent preference of _ȝ_ for _y_ in spelling (§ 5 i) than to direct confusion of _þ_: _ȝ_, which are not usually very similar in late Middle English script. _þ_ : _h_ e.g. _doþ_ (MS. _doh_) XV _b_ 22; and notes to XII _b_ 116, XVI 62. _b_ : _v_ e.g. _vousour_ (edd. _bonsour_) II 363. _c_ : _t_ e.g. _cunesmen_ (edd. _tunesmen_) XV _g_ 6 (note); _top_ (edd. _cop_) ibid. 16; see note to XIII _a_ 7. _f_ : _ſ_ (= _s_) e.g. _slang_ (variant _flang_) X 53. _l_ : _ſ_ (= _s_) e.g. _al_ (edd. _as_) II 108. _l_ : _k_ e.g. _kyþeȝ_ (MS. _lyþeȝ_) VI 9. § 5. SPECIAL LETTERS. Two letters now obsolete are common in fourteenth-century MSS.: _þ_ and _ȝ_. _þ_: 'thorn', is a rune, and stands for the voiced and voiceless sounds now represented by _th_ in _this_, _thin_. The gradual displacement of _þ_ by _th_, which had quite a different sound in classical Latin (note to VIII _a_ 23), may be traced in the MSS. printed (except X, XII). _þ_ remained longest in the initial position, but by the end of the fifteenth century was used chiefly in compendia like _þe_ 'the', _þt_ 'that'.